Grantham Journal column: Charity begins at home

Brace yourself for the worst Grantham and all other communities in our beleaguered country, if the government continues with its current policies of austerity, privatisation and inward investment.

Port Talbot isn’t the only place under threat from the triple ideological disasters of our present regime. Recently I highlighted the chaos in the NHS due to covert privatisation and all that goes with it.

We all know the costly effects inward investment has already had on the utilities, including energy companies, railways, etc, etc, and of course British Steel. I often wonder what happened to the so-called ‘Golden Shares’ which were supposed to protect us from vital services falling into the wrong hands.

Maggie Thatcher’s government championed privatisation to further its own ends, destroying the coal industry in the process.

Other industries followed, some sold off to the Americans, some to European, Australian, Canadian and Indian investors, all alleged to be of great value to our growth.

Unfortunately the exponents of this strategy forgot or chose to forget lessons learned in the heyday of Ford cars in this country.

Ford manufactured such top selling models in Britain as the Escort, Capri, Cortina and so on.

The British success story became the envy of the world, but where did the company pull the plug when it ran into troubled waters in the good old US of A? Another inward investment warning.

Charity begins at home in other countries, as do business loyalty and self-preservation policies. *

As for TATA; what a perfect lesson on how to destroy the most fantastic steel industry in the world together with a possible 40,000 jobs or so!

Clearly the government has several possible options all at a considerable cost to taxpayers and the rest of the nation. So why not go the whole hog, nationalise steel and be done with it?